A good head start...................

Been dabbling in Paul Johnson's biography on Charles Darwin.  Here is an excerpt:

     As the progeny of three such remarkable men, Erasmus and Robert Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood - the imaginative genius, the intuitive genius, and the empirical genius - Charles Darwin had access to a gene pool of the highest possible quality.  Some points are worth noting.  First, all three forebears were skillful at handling money and amassed it with the seemingly effortless ease that financial wizards show.  Hence Charles Darwin was able to become a gentleman-scientist without the smallest difficulty and remain one all his life.  He never had to worry about money.  He did worry about money - he worried about everything - but he never had to compromise, limit, or adjust his scientific activities for financial reasons.  This he was virtually unique among famous scientists.

As excerpted from Darwin:  Portrait of a Genius